The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1887-12-23
ANCIENT TRAMPS.
Treatment of the sad and Jolly Reg
CARS in ola England.


men earn 3 farlhings an hour when
they can get work, so long as the reg
ulation price before the sweater"
has taken 1.-THE of iD is for army leg
gings Is a dozen, for prisoners flannel
drawers Is Sd, for frilled lawn tennis
aprons sd.
OF course, besides the hardworkcrs,
there are the idlers. either through
laziness or want of work. and there
are the wanderers, the Jolly beggars"
of Burns, tramps, who never did
stroke Of work save on compusion,
and never mean TO. These have al
ways been in the land, often in num-
bers relatively far larger than now.
They have been treated with alternate
petting and coercion; in one town poor
people borrowing a half-pennY to give
TO Il beggar; in the next. the constable
clapping them in the stocks. and Civ
ing them good whipping before letting
them 90. The strangest thing is that
this whipping was generally followed
by dole In many parish books,
about 800 years ago, we find such en-
tries as these:
"Payd for wippin tow pore folk,
lid"
"Payd and given to pore man and
his wifi that was Wiped, ibid"
This was double the usual tarili,
which is represented by, Gave the
tow when they went, id. ~
In Saxton times the beggar, unless
he found refuge in one OF them thinly
scattered monasteries, was an evil case.
He belonged to the dangerous tribe OF
.'masterless" men, people for whom
no one was answerable; and those who
sheltered him were fain to do it by
stealth, for if man staid with You
more than a couple of days, you were
accountable not only for anything he
might then do, but also for his antecc-
dents. Mr. Rbton Turner thinks race
has a good deal TO do with beggary
When you take away a mans means OF
life, he must either starve or rob or beg.
The old natives Of Great Britain were
short, dark people Basques, say some,
Esquimaux say others; the tall light
haired Gael beat them out from al
most everywhere except South Wales.
Then the Cymrt another Celt-
ic people came across from the Cimbric
Chersonese DENMARK, landed IN
Aberdeen, spread over Scotland ms
Picts, and, coming southwark, were
met by the tide of Saxon or Gas the
new lights prefer TO call iD English
invasion. and turned aside into Wales.
What the round-skuled Gael has done
TO the short long-sLulled people who
preceded him, the Saxon did to the
Gael He took his titled land from
HMM those days il was not much.
nine-tenths of the island being forest
and marsh-and he gave him no
chance of settling near him. and bring
inc in some of the wild country. That
was not done till later, when the mon
asteries (true agricultural colonies) set
the example of making the desert
smile. The conquered had nothing TO
do for it but to submit to slavery or to
.'moye ON If he moved on with a
lot of friends, he might settle down
somewhere in Wales. or on the Cor
nish moors, or in the wild district call
ed Cumbria (Cymrl's Land. from
Chester to the Solway. But there
would generally be somebody TO turn
out; so, if he was alone or with few,
begging or robbing (the two we're in
lerchangeable) was his only resource.
Then the numbers of the wanderers
would always be recruited from those
who consented to remain in slavery.
To be a slave under the best oil
masters must have been a try
ing chance; and few masters were
good, or misiresses either, in days
when lady thought nothing OF having
a girl logged to death for dressing hei
hair badly. Many, therefore, would
run away; become "hymas," that is,
ramps, through whom the tramp ma
lure has been perpetuated. Whether OIL
not race" was the cause, tramps were
very numerous in Saxon times; else
why the stringent laws against them'
Then. as now, they had coaxing way
with them. To wheedle is from
"waedlian." to beg. In summer tho
woods gave them shelter aud food; il